Abit KG7-RAID Motherboard Review

Introduction:

It's finally here, the KG7-RAID!
Abit once again, hits a home run with their KG7-RAID. Featuring their incredible SoftMenuIII BIOS! This board is so awesome, allowing for very small adjustments of the FSB usually in increments of 1-2 MHz. This is a must have for the serious overclocker because of the multiple variations between CPUs. With six PCI slots, AGP 4X, Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support up to 4 GB PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM, four UDMA100 controllers allowing up to 8 Ultra DMA 33/66/100( RAID 0 /1/0+1), what's not to like? This board is top-of-the-line , best of the best, far more superior than any other board on the market!

What is DDR?
The basic idea behind DDR SDRAM is that you take a normal SDRAM module and redesign it to be able to send data on the rising and falling edge of each clock. Instead of running the SDRAM twice as fast, which is an exceedingly difficult task, you enable it to send data twice as fast, a less difficult task, thereby providing about twice the theoretical maximum memory bandwidth.

DDR1600, runs at 100MHz DDR, with the equivalent of 200MHz of bandwidth. On a 64-bit wide memory bus, the standard for today's SDRAM desktop systems, DDR1600 provides a theoretical peak of 1600MBps of memory bandwidth, hence the name DDR1600.

DDR2100, runs at 133MHz DDR, with the equivalent of 266MHz of bandwidth. On a 64-bit wide memory bus, DDR2100 provides a theoretical peak of about 2100MBps of memory bandwidth, hence the name DDR2100.

The AMD 761 chipset

The AMD 761 chipset is AMD's very own DDR chipset for the AMD Athlon family of processors.
The chipset consist of the AMD 761 called the North Bridge and the VIA 686B which is the South Bridge.
The AMD 761 wasn't the first DDR-capable north bridge to support Athlon CPUs--that honor goes to the Acer Labs M1647 ALiMAGiK. However, the 761 currently offers the best performance of any Athlon DDR north bridge.

The 761 isn't particularly flexible about memory configurations. Most users buy unbuffered DIMMs, and the 761 is capable of supporting only two unbuffered DIMMs. However, this inflexibility is mitigated by the fact that you can add memory modules one at a time, and the two modules may be different sizes, though they must be the same type (either unbuffered or registered). Maximum memory supported is 4GB.

If you have alot of USB devices, like me, you can make alot of use of the 2 extra USB ports that Abit provides. It's really easy to install, just place it in an emtpy bay slot in the back of your computer, and plug the wire into the USB header that is located on the motherboard. (Refer to page 2-11 of your manual).